Set Fire to the Third Bar
by fee-kh
Summary: songfic, oneoff. Post This year's girl at some random point.


A/N: Well a song fic, set to Snow Patrol's you guessed it song of the same name. It is a fabulous tune that I have been listening to non-stop (literally) for the last three days. The album, Eyes Open, is good too, but this song just hit me right between the eyes and I can't seem to make my mind up whether it is a happy song or the most depressing thing to grace my earphones in recent years..

I thinkthe fic isa bit poncy and the end does not really mesh well, but each part was supposed to be complemented by the lines after it. Anyway, read for yourself and tell me what you think.

**Set Fire to the Third Bar**

The office stood silent in the gathering gloom. Nothing gave rise to the idea that somebody had made this room his home for the last couple of weeks.

The only personal touch in the entire room was a map of the world, hanging in a dark corner of the room. A long red line marred the immaculate surface. One end ended on the west coast of the USA in the city of Los Angeles to be exact. Then it went in a straight line, disregarding such mundane things as rivers and oceans, crossing the USA in an almost even line, then the Atlantic, cutting Spain, Portugaland the Mediterranean to end in the Eternal City herself, Rome.

_I find a map and draw a straight line_

_Over rivers farms and state lines_

_The distance from a to where you'd b_

_It's only finger lengths I see_

Golden sunlight flooded the flat overlooking the Trevi Fountain. The living room was filled with bookshelves and warm cream leather furniture. It was filled with comfort an exuded a tangible feeling of home. Yet there was evidence of things missing. While two of the armchairs looked well-lived in, little marks and smudges showing extensive use, another shone in pristine glory, evidently never sat in. Empty picture frames littered the mantle piece. Some shelves were empty as if waiting for belongings to be placed there.

In pride of place on the centre of the coffee table lay a colourful map of Southern California, folded and refolded so often that the creased had turned white with use, ink heavily smudged over a little town just south of Los Angeles that didn't exist anymore bar on the outdated well-fingered paper.

_I touch the place_

_Where I'd find your face_

_My fingers in creases_

_Of distant dark places_

The man walked down the sidewalk, humanity swirling around him in a sea of light. As if sensing his distancing the crowds parted before him like the ocean and closed ranks behind him as if he had never been.

He stood alone in a sea of humanity, searching, ever searching for what had brought him back. A long roll of thunder heralded a downpour and the man followed the bright lights into a nearby bar. For the first time in ages L.A. was experiencing a downpour of epic proportions, rain falling from the sky like a waterfall, washing away dirt and grime and chasing the inhabitants to the nearest cover they could fine.

He had beaten them to it though finding and claiming the last free booth and now the icy distance ensured that he stayed as alone as he felt.

The moisture hung in the air like the smog that plagued the city, the enforced closeness allowing strangers to break the strictures of society and interact fearlessly.

"I'm telling yoush." One man slurred, his voice heard above the din of the bar. "Ahm telling ya. That were no earthquake." He took another deep drink from the glass in his hand. "Theresh no way a damn earthquake makes a hole round." The men in his group nodded approvingly as they each threw in theories of what had actually happened to the city of Sunnydale, each more ludicrous than the one before never knowing that the cause was sitting right there with them.

_I hang my coat up in the fist bar_

_There is no peace that I've found so far_

_The laughter penetrates my silence_

_As drunken men find flaws in science_

"So what do you think? Should I go with Oxford or Cambridge? You know they're both good and…"

"We found another ten slayers in Southern Afghanistan, seems they were helping the local armed forces defend against…."

"Willow thinks she's found that missing slayer in.."

"Buffy, have you s…"

"Buffy?"

"Bu…"

"Are you even listening to me?"

"I know I'm a monster, but when you look at me. It makes me feel like a man."

_Their words mostly noises_

_Ghosts with just voices_

_Your words in my memory_

_Are like music to me_

Spike haunted the city at night, pushed on by some nameless thing that dogged his every step, the need to move, be somewhere else, but he knew not where.

Inevitably his steps always led him to the city's largest and oldest cemetery. It had filled up pretty fast after the Great Fire and now was among the most restful places in this city that seemed to never rest, lights burning away as humanity burnt the candle at both ends.

Every night he came here, ghosting through the graveyard, finally flopping down on the ground as the yearning tore through him with an almost physical ache. The loss of her bled his soul as surely as a missing limb would his body. And every night he prayed to the heavens he no longer believed him, for how could a benevolent god throw his sacrifice back in his face. Prayed something, anything were different so he could be there, at her side, holding her in his arms and be held in return.

_And miles from where you are_

_I lay down on the cold ground and I_

_Pray that something picks me up_

_And sets me down in your warm arms._

Another night in another city. Rome having gone as quickly as it had come, the stay short and bittersweet. Going through the motions of establishing Andrew in his new flat, reconnoitring the latest assignment before letting the creep find out that he wasn't so unkillable after all. And through it all one image went through her head.

Coming home to him, telling about her adventures, laughing, crying and raging with him. Letting it all fade away as they made their way to their bed and pretended the world did not exist with its demands and insistence on reality. Reality where there was no-one to go home to bar more duties, more questions and more heartache.

_After I travelled so far_

_We'd set fire to the third bar_

_We'd share each other like an island_

_Until exhausted close our eyelids._

Spike tossed restlessly in his bed, limbs twitching as his dreams pulled him away to heaven.

"Spike. I love you."

"Love you too pet." Their linked enflamed hands pulled each other closer, arms intertwining as the ecstasy shot through them both lighting the Hellmouth in a blaze of glory.

Their bed reached up to embrace them as they came together in a tangle of limbs, gasping for air. Begging for more. She lay beneath him shining like a treasure in the half light of the room. Her climax rippling through her glowing body, tears seeping from their eyes as she pulled him with her.

_And dreaming pick up from_

_The last place we left off_

_Your soft skin is weeping_

_A joy you can't keep in_

Buffy haunted the streets of the city that night, ghosting through cemeteries and parks, dusting the occasional vamp, chatting to the occasional demon going about his or her business. Restlessness was her mantra that night, something calling to her, urging her to move, fine what was taken and return it. Pulling her to a city far away on the border of the ocean. She had to go.

_And miles from where you are_

_I lay down on the cold ground and I_

_Pray that something picks me up_

_And sets me down in your warm arms._


End file.
